Musings from the Levant.

(Remember to read these postings from the bottom to the top.)

After the initial tour of Cyprus, it came time for the flight to Beirut. I will save you from the travails at the Larnaca Airport, but suffice it to say, that it was almost Heathrow part two. More Cyprus Airways stoneage antics again. It was a good thing I got to the airport nice and early, 'cause they used up all the time having me go from one side of the airport to the other. I had an e-ticket and they couldn't pull it up in the system at baggage check, but they could retrieve it at the ticket purchasing desk. One hand couldn't communicate with the other.

Once all was settled and I navigated through security, I plopped down on a chair in the departure lounge and pulled out the souvlakia I had bought in Larnaka. (I detoured back to Lakis' Souvlakia and picked one up "to-go".) Larnaka doesn't have jet-ways, so we boarded the cattle cars that trundled out to the plane and carried our bags onto the plane up the stairs. My carry-on is now becoming quite heavy with my breakable purchases, and the nice Brazilian man seated next to me who offered to lift it into the over-head compartment nearly had a hernia getting it up there. Wait till I add my recent Beirut purchases!

The flight to Beirut was amazingly short. It seemed as if we went up, and we went down. Probably no more than the distance from Sacramento to San Francisco. Our approach to Beirut was over the water, so we landed at the moment we saw the run-way. Because it was a late flight (arriving at around 11PM), and it wasn't full, we zipped through customs very quickly, and my driver was waiting for me with a placard that had my name on it. I felt very important to be one of those people... you know... that you see with an entourage. The new airport is on the same site as the old one but very modern.

The road in from the airport is a four-lane, super highway that was carved right out out of city. The driver explained to me that they had knocked down high-rises to create it. One difference between our highways and this one: it is just as wide, but there are no lane-markings. That means that the cars all pack into the space with people cutting each other off, massive honkings, swervings, and pandemonium. It is no different than when the roads were small, it's just more confusing.

Needless to say, it was beddy-bye for me as soon as I arrived at my hotel, The Mayflower. This hotel is one of the ones where my parents would stay when they came to visit me at boarding school. It's a middle-class establishment in the busy Hamra area that we used to refer to as uptown. Downtown was off-limits to the boarders. We were confined to a small, square area of uptown so that no harm would come to us.

I didn't remember Beirut as being so hilly. The outlying hills and mountains are much closer to the city than I recall. In fact, the city climbs right up the sides of the mountains. The hill from our old school to uptown is steeper and longer than I remember.

My first full day in this bustling city was actually spent far away from Beirut itself. Our school had planned a field trip to several valleys, beginning with an impressive Roman aqueduct. We arrived at the aqueduct site at the same time as a contingent of the Lebanese army on a training mission. As we piled out of our busses, the army soldiers began climbing all over the structure and the adjoining hills, wearing not only their army fatigues, but assorted bushes sticking out of every orifice of their clothing. One enterprising fellow had plucked a flowering bush to stuff into the top of the back of his shirt. Once those guys crouched down on the parapets of the aqueduct or on the rocks of the hillside, they really did blend in with the scenery. I can't imagine trying to defend such a vast topography. Here in Beirut, the ubiquitous Lebanese army actually wears concrete-colored camouflage made of rip-stop nylon in various shades of gray and black. We have to be careful what we take pictures of and have learned that if a soldier is anywhere near by, it usually means he is guarding something, so NO PICTURES.

Aqueduct - complete with camouflaged Lebanese army.

On our field trip, we also visited a place where the locals "crack" pine cones with an ancient, rusty machine that belches smoke and clatters deafeningly. They turned it on briefly to show us how it works. One of the workers wore a kaffia (headress) and looked suspiciously like a terrorist...

Pinecone cracking machine.

Pinecone "Terrorist"

We also visited a carob-molasses factory that wasn't making molasses. Turns out they usually make it in the winter time, but our tour-guides thought we should see it. We were served an authentic Arabic meal somewhere up in the mountains, followed by a detour to a river called Nahr El Kalb (the dog river) where there were inscriptions dating from ancient times to more modern times (the second world war).

Gail, Lynn, and I at Nahr El Kalb

At the end of the day, the small group of us from the Mayflower Hotel all piled into the pub next to the lobby for a cold beer. The humidity here is like New Orleans. No one can have a decent hairdo and everyone needs something cold at the end of the day. After that refreshment, we went out for a Lebanese meal.

Tomorrow, I will tell you about today. Now, it's night-night.